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2.1.4-Alasse-irena
Brick!Club 2.1.4 I was originally going to skip posting on 2.1.4, because everyone has covered the important points, but before I move on to 2.1.5, I have to address, or at least be amused by, this: It is almost superfluous here to sketch the appearance of Napoleon on horseback, glass in hand, upon the heights of Rossomme, at daybreak, on June 18, 1815. Of course, Hugo being Hugo, proceeds to give us a neat little sketch in prose of Napoleon on horseback. Here’s a hint, Hugo - if you want us to read a thing, don’t tell us it’s unimportant first. I also wanted to stop and be fascinated by this final paragraph (although everyone else has certainly done that), which as far as I am concerned is worth dropping wholesale into my post: That light called history is pitiless; it possesses this peculiar and divine quality, that, pure light as it is, and precisely because it is wholly light, it often casts a shadow in places where people had hitherto beheld rays; from the same man it constructs two different phantoms, and the one attacks the other and executes justice on it, and the shadows of the despot contend with the brilliancy of the leader. Hence arises a truer measure in the definitive judgments of nations. Babylon violated lessens Alexander, Rome enchained lessens Caesar, Jerusalem murdered lessens Titus, tyranny follows the tyrant. It is a misfortune for a man to leave behind him the night which bears his form. I am intrigued by this. We’ve got this perfectly sensible, on the one hand, that history is objective, and will judge Napoleon without bias, accounting for both his light and his shadow, which seems a reasonable enough thing to write. Then on the other hand we’ve got that comment that it’s a “misfortune” for history to judge him at least not wholly good. I don’t know. Perhaps the implications of misfortune have shifted since this was written (someone talk to me about the original French?), but misfortune sounds to me like bad luck - like, “Oh, how unlucky for tyrants, that they leave a shadow behind.” It almost seems to me like Hugo is blaming history for looking badly on Napoleon, rather than Napoleon for doing the things that caused the figurative shadows. I do feel like I’m misreading this; feel free to set me straight. Commentary Doeskin-pantaloons I figure that it’s a misfortune not that they’re judged badly, but a misfortune that there are men who leave behind them the night at all. Maedhrys Hmm, the French on that is “C’est un malheur pour un homme de laisser derrière lui de la nuit qui a sa forme.” To me, that doesn’t really make Hugo’s meaning very clear—the wordreference dictionary, which I usually trust, tells me that “malheur” can mean anything from misfortune or accident to tragedy, and that “malheur à” means “woe to,” which would lead to FMA’s translation (“Woe to the man who leaves behind a shadow that bears his form!”), which seems to make more sense in context, but there is no “à”. So after looking at the French, I still don’t know.